Board of Education, Regular Meeting

1. 0:00schoolers um we had a great time uh and it was a big success especially with the middle schoolers they like to sing to all our songs really loudly um and our musical is on its way and it's happening the Annie rehearsals are ongoing I don't remember the date specifically for when it is but it's in March I think um other clubs um mock trial has officially dished out their roles and I think Mark I'm going to take you up on your offer to make a presentation about the clubs and stuff um at a future meeting um and model un is hosting a mini model un uh at the end of January cool.
2. 0:42um tonight registration for project passport closes which is a pretty cool thing um it's basically helping kids uh get their passport um it was specifically I think created by our social studies enrichment fund which uh is the fund dedicated towards our Europe trip which happens at the end of the school year um but it is also extended towards the community and is happening at the spark of Hudson um yeah that registration closes tonight and tomorrow we have a bowling field trip uh which was set up by our gym teachers and very excited for that thank you awesome thank you very much.
3. 1:27okay presentations District technology updates in smart school inv
4. 1:40good evening um in case you don't know who I am for the community my name is Cheryl Rabinowitz and I'm the manager of instructional technology I'm very excited tonight to present to you some District technology updates as well as an overview of our smart schools investment plan everything we do you have seen this in the past in presentations we always have everything aligned with the six keys of school Improvement whether it's technology Dei School Improvement whatever it is we make sure we're aligned we thank Dr pennyman for bringing this to us and it really keeps us our eye on the ball.
5. 2:20tonight I'm going to speak to you about the technology progress in the district for the last couple of years it's important to know because we have a few new administrators few new staff members community members students and the district has made a lot of progress and we can continue to want to make progress but we always like to reflect back on what progress has been made um the next thing is we're going to talk to you about the student tech for overview and we'll also talk to you about the district technology committee the plan moving forward and an overview of our smart Bond schools investment plan
6. 3:00so without further this is very important without further Ado we always like to acknowledge everyone for their collaboration and supporting the Technologies for the students and the staff we wouldn't be here with the technology that we have in the district if we didn't have the support of the board members and the superintendent Dr pennyman and the District staff and the building Administration I won't read you everything but you all should Pat yourselves on the back whether you were sitting on the board you were past Community member a current Community member it doesn't really matter there's been a lot of support and this is how we've been able to do what we've done over the last couple years because if you were to hit rewind some of you may remember during the pandemic the district technology was really in rough shape are we perfect no do we still have things to do absolutely but we just want to acknowledge that a lot of progress has been made and that's thanks to everyone working together
7. 4:01so I won't read to you everything but just give you some heavy lifts these are some of the things that were done during those school years okay again very important because our technology wasn't holding up we had a pandemic going on students had poor Chromebooks the displays weren't working the devices weren't working so we really got together and did all of these things okay we installed new network switches we upgraded the server room room again I'm not going to read everything but just some key pieces we hired two in-house computer service specialist and we centralized all our software that was very important because the district had a lot of software but we wanted to make sure that we knew what software we had it was tied into New York State at LD we wanted to make sure that we were in compliance and we're continuing to monitor software the district our cabinet our teachers we're going to be working on looking at the software that we currently have and continuing we do it every year continuing to see does it meet our needs is or is it being used
8. 5:08the next year the next couple of years we upgraded the cabling and the network closets we developed a cyber security plan again I'm not reading everything to you but just giving you some ideas we upgraded the camera system our security camera system was in rough shape so we upgraded it we still have more to go and you're going to hear about that this evening we implemented Wordly the language translation program and we worked I worked with Dr pressie and we assisted with the district with the pronunciations and we're very excited about that and there's more that needs to happen and we also implemented our student tech crew and um Thomas was part of that which was great
9. 5:51where we are today we this past school year which starts in July we integrated branching Minds achieve 3,00 Atlas software staff track and class link with our echool data and our class link program and that's pretty important so that our information flows back and forth we're working out any kinks if data is flowing over that shouldn't be but it still makes it easy for our students and staff to access the programs um we had a in the past we had another cyber security awareness training program this one we just recently um purchased it was called cyber nut it was earlier in the summer that we purchased it and we it could be used for students as well as staff so that's a really good plus helping them build their skills with cyber security
10. 6:42as you are aware we kicked off the Verizon program we're very excited about that that was able to provide resources to our students and our staff we provided Chromebooks the Chromebooks have cellular data um we've provided two instru uction technology coaches part of it was District funding part of it was Verizon funding but that was important and you'll see in in a little while while it was important to have instructional technology coaches we this year we also developed a student family handbook and we're developing a staff tech technology
11. 7:19handbook that it's One-Stop shopping it'll be electronic um so that all the staff and the students can access everything they can see everything they know parents as well and we also provided staff development on superintendent conference days again there are other things there but I just kind of wanted to give you a sense funding in case anyone asks where does funding come for technology part of it general fund part of it is eate part of it is donations and part of it is Grants and we're very excited about that because we can do a lot with what we have and we have done a lot.
12. 8:00this just gives you an idea when you look at this we like to look at data this is what we currently have in the district we have staff laptops about 230 now those are the ones that most of the teachers use and a few of the administrators have they were purchased in 2020 so as you know we move ahead we'll we'll be assessing when we need to either purchase laptop or a Chromebook um but we do have that in the district Chromebooks the number is Big because we upgraded the Chromebooks then we rewarded the grant but they don't go to waste we use them for computerized testing we use them for daily looners um if a student misplaces a Chromebook so they're constantly being used we have a Chromebook cart that we bring here for the board meeting so we're in pretty good shape both at the junior high school and high school campus as well as the Elementary.
13. 8:55uh also Chromebooks are in class classs like art rooms and and things like that so they can use technology if a student forgets a prog software programs so you heard me mention that we have a lot of software right now we have about 130 programs plus free programs okay um they're all New York State at L 2D compatible we are looking at them we continue to look at them we want to make sure they're used but they're for administration as well as um teachers and classroom so instruction and non-instruction.
14. 9:32this right here just to give you an idea nothing really happens um that we try not to help so when I say we try not to help we have a technology staff we have and I won't read you all of those but just to give you an idea we have myself the instructional technology manager and I'm also the data Protection Officer we have a network systems engineer from NK and we have computer service specialists the two that we got five years a four years ago and then one this year through the Verizon and we need that because they support everything that you've seen and you you know um we always continually make sure this is one of the things I meet with the Department regularly we always want to make sure that it's seamless for the user that's really important.
15. 10:26we don't want staff teachers administrators being interrupted if they're presenting or they're teaching or whatever they're doing do things happen sure but when they call the technology department or they put in a help desk ticket we do our best to address the issues and we're continuing to improve on that uh our Focus really is high quality customer surface students and staff come first um and we also reflect you know uh Dr pennyman is wonderful she works with us Mak sure we're reflecting and you know guiding us and so forth so that helps too because again nothing is perfect but we're we're working there we're very proud of what we've done so far as a district not Cheryl as a whole district with technology.
16. 11:12okay student tech crew okay so a couple years back we had one student tech crew cohort one we had about 20 students in it and it's grown over the last couple of years we're very excited about that so now we're up to three cohorts the first cohort of Grade 9 through 12 students who were in their second and third year which is nice the third year of the program cohort to and they also have their computer repair certification that they can use when they graduate they go out there it's actual the same certification our technicians have which is very nice.
17. 11:50cohort 2 are students who were in their first year of the program so they work in the IT department remember all that H he's shaking his head yeah um they work in the IT department they do everything that it takes to work in an IT department if you click on this link it will show you or I can pull it up here basically it breaks it down into more detail okay won't read it to you but just to explain cohort one and two work under the advisor Mrs Bender who's the teacher and they also work with the instructional technology coach Mr Lynch and they work in the IT department so they have a lot of people working with them.
18. 12:32cohort number three I'll switch back to that that's new this year as well that's our grade eight students and we may even be bringing it down to grade six and seven we wanted to start with grade eight those students are doing digital media announcements so we're really bringing them ahead we can't have them certified yet you know they'll do some basic troubleshooting but the Dell Pro program or the program that we use starts in high school but we're having a quadre of students so when they go to the high school they've already been exposed to it.
19. 13:09okay District technology committee update we have a very collaborative working committee we convened in 2020 and we met virtually they're comprised of students and parents and community members faculty Administration and I really want to thank them for all their hard work uh they meet I would say a few times a year and it's a volunteer committee and we really they're it's a working committee and what they did the first couple of years is they developed a three-year technology plan that's on our website.
20. 13:43this year believe it or not we're getting ready to do the next three-year technology plan and we're very excited about that but when we did that three-year technology plan we used data sources we had some of you may remember we had an audit and they found different things so we made sure that we were implementing that as we were making improvements we also surveyed we surveyed our students our staff and our community and from the feedback that also helped us drive our technology plan and then we have the New York State digital Equity surveys as well as the IT department the IT department myself and the technicians as well as our Bose's
21. 14:27Partners did assessment so all of that went into our Tech plan okay so the goals you've seen them you've heard them before but I kind of want to tell you where we are with them so goal one we've already met that it was providing appropriate instructional technology tools to the scho community for teaching learning and productivity and all of those actions were completed.
22. 14:54Goal two and three providing professional development to teachers ERS administrators and support staff and goal three ined ensuring student proficiency are we there yet no but it's very exciting that with the uh Verizon Grant with the instructional technology coaches we are able to really have uh staff members support our teachers and our students with whatever they need regarding instructional technology so that's really exciting we're very excited about that so it's in process and you know whether it's modeling a lesson in the classroom meeting with a teacher helping them develop a lesson helping them develop a lesson on cyber security it's all you know very exciting for us.
23. 15:44Goal four and that's the one you're going to hear a little bit more about tonight so goal four in our technology plan that we wrote a few years ago was upgrading the wireless network infrastructure upgrading the security camera system upgrading the phone system and our recommendation what you're going to hear is to use our smart schools funding for a variety of reasons.
24. 16:09Okay this year the technology committee will be focusing on making recommendations for policies we're developing a software form Dr Courtright Tes and I began drafting it so that technology and curriculum are align so when it on once the form is created we'll share it with the board basically the idea of it is that when staff administrators would like to purchase a program there's a process for them to complete to make sure it's completed filled out it's budgeted for is there a demo that's needed and it goes through all the proper channels so we're excited about that.
25. 16:45Um we as I mentioned we're going to be developing District technology surveys for the next three years that will go out to staff and families and students next month it should be on coordinating that with Dr pressy and that will be sent out and it will ask the district again their feedback on what they how they would like to see technology in the district as we move ahead and we'll also be updating uh the cyber security incident response plan and we'll be exploring more instructional technology resources so do you have any questions?
26. 17:29Yes I do um regarding the student uh tech crew yes how does a student become aware to be a part of the is that a class?
27. 17:37Sure absolutely so it's done a variety of ways in the fall well let me even back up when we did the Verizon kickoff we had our student tech crew working there and giving out information that was the first one then when the students got together in the beginning of the year when they do their clubs there was a table there with a computer Compu technician a couple of our student tech crew members recruiting students and then the teacher Mrs vender also recruit students and the guidance Department knows so it continues like that and it's also Word of Mouth a student will see another student helping in a classroom or what's that what did you do how you know and that's how it starts.
28. 18:17So it's a club um it's a class for grades 9 through 12 it's a club for not even a club it's they do a during study hall in grade eight okay but they can join you know not right then and there they might have to wait till the next semester but and they get credit for it okay.
29. 18:38Yes I was I was just going to add um that in your course signups it's an option and you can sign up for it for the next school year or next semester um and it's completely whenever you're available so if you have a study hall fourth period on gold days you can do it then um and you like there's the only like uh regulation that you have for it is that you have to be there at least once a week and you have to have a free time to do it um and you get a grade for it it used to be past fail when I did it for a little bit but now you get an actual grade for it and with the Dell certification like steps that you take Miss Bender assigns assignments and tests along with the actual passing of the uh like certification.
30. 19:23Thank you Thomas appreciate that um and besides the the Dell Chromebooks because now we have the Verizon Chromebooks which are made by CTL our technicians are showing the students pretty much they're similar but they're slightly different in the way they repair so they're also learning how to do that as well okay were there any other question.
31. 19:45Excuse what grade are um do Chromebooks start being distributed?
32. 19:47Oh so we are a onetoone district so everyone from prek up have Chromebooks okay so the younger grades they just keep them in the classrooms they keep them in the classroom up until about grade five grade five sends them out grade three and grade four can send them out and they will send them out on special projects and when we collect those forms we collect them from all the students so they're they're ready to roll.
33. 20:08Great this isn't a question just a comment but I I all the digital signage and the screens around the school make a big difference and uh everybody does a great job with that so thank you.
34. 20:20Yes very excited about that and you know we're very thankful to Dr pennyman and we've been able to support the district doing that and as we move ahead we we like to continue to enhance it you know as time sees right um and also I didn't mention but when you said that um we're also happy to tape the board meeting working with you guys on that too and you know we're going to do something with these wires but we'll get there.
35. 20:45Thank you that's right.
36. 20:45Okay so my next part of my presentation um I'll be presenting along with some colleagues okay so this is where we're going to give you an overview of the SMART School investment plan and also I always like to level set and give back some history so before the pandemic and I I wasn't here at that juncture but before the pandemic the district did start to go down that way they know they needed to utilize the monies for the smart Bond and they started to explore and do
37. 21:19different things um and then the pandemic happened you know and then that was the end of that for that then when I came in the district and you'll hear a little bit more um again we were we had lots of different things going on and but we also didn't have a technology plan and in order to get this you need to have a technology plan so that's when the first couple years we worked on the technology plan and then you know um we had demos we had different things come in and we'll talk a little bit more about that in a second but uh we also had Administration change and we wanted to wait until Dr pennyman came you know to make sure because she was coming to our district and there might be some other things things that she would like to include in the smart Bond you know and she's been very supportive and over the last year we worked together with a team of individuals which were from the technology committee uh from the buildings from the staff from the community and we had some demonstrations of uh various programs and various vendors and we were using the data from those first as I mentioned those different things that we had in the beginning that's what was telling us what we needed to do in the district you know and because also when you hear about these things these aren't the costs of Chromebooks they're a little bit more we're not going to discuss pricing today we're going to come back at a later date and I'll talk to you about that but that's why we decided to go this way.
38. 22:44all right so just to give a background New York State voters not necessarily Hudson you know all the voters throughout the whole New York state in 2014 authorized the issuance of a two billion General obligation bond to provide educational technology improvements to schools Hudson's allocation is$ 1,771 $233 I can't even say sorry my voice is going um again it was a collaborative process I mentioned that to you we were very excited about that and what we have to do is we're going to be developing a smart B plan and basically the information that you're going to hear about tonight and all the demos that we had we already have that information and we're going to place it in here once we get you know the go-ahead then we will submit it and then we'll go through the steps with you so I just want to tell you what's kind of coming okay so that's what that is.
39. 23:47okay so the focus areas we knew we had a focus on for technology with the high-tech security features and we'll explain what that is and the school connectivity okay part of the requirement again I mentioned the school the smart schools Bond plan must be aligned with the technology plan you saw I showed you how it's aligned so we're good and there again is the goal okay and our recommendation is um to upgrade our security camera system we started we did a phase one where we implemented a few cameras uh and software and servers because they were in bad shape but we still have a lot more to go so we want to utilize the money for that also upgrading our phone system our phone system is old and with security on you know everyone's mind in general we just want to make sure we have the best for our students and staff um and also updating the PA systems and you're going to hear a little bit about that and also structured cabling which basically means when you do a project like this you have to upgrade some of the cabling okay so without further Ado I'm G to um turn it over to Tyler Tyler is going to speak to you about the security camera upgrades thank you Cheryl.
40. 25:19good evening folks um so actually this started for me last year before we were going to figure out that we were going to use some of this money for the smart Bond um so we did a full assessment with day automations which is our camera vendor um which was about a week long of walking through each building checking out every single camera its location you know what it could see what it couldn't see and and so on and so forth um so with that said we we actually we we purchased the software and the server um we converted all the cameras that we had currently over to the software um which is working pretty good uh the only issue is you know obviously we couldn't convert all the cameras at one time right so we're waiting on on the on the funds to do so um so with that said we we we installed 16 new cameras right um most of them went to high trafficed areas in the high school which was you know areas that we couldn't really see on a daily basis um the entire front of the Junior and Senior High School also got new cameras uh the cafeteria which is another hight trffic area um and also which was big to me was the visitors the visitor management which we gave cameras to the Junior and the senior high front doors the front doors weren't locked at you know when I got here and I thought that was you know something that we could definitely upgrade right away um so what we did was we allowed the greeters which sit at the front door to lock the front door give them camera access to just that camera so that they can see who's ringing the doorbell and com to the door before they actually approach the window.
41. 27:01um so that that was mostly you know the big thing for you know phase one I guess you would say of of the of the camera project um phase two is going to come from obviously us submitting to the smart bond which will be 90% of the upgrade to the camera system so phase two um obviously uh video upgrades and additions to to all the cameras um during the assessment we we figured out that there will be 58 new cameras placed um when I say new I don't mean you know we're going to rip the camera down and just put up a new camera it's more advanced where um you know if you had a camera on each end of the corridor now we may take them both down put one camera in the middle of the corridor right with a dual head and it actually only converts as one license which saves the district money in the end right um so when I say 58 new cameras it's not that we're adding 58 new cameras to 150
42. 28:05cameras that are already there um there's 113 replacement cameras which were in decent spots um and we just you know obviously that's pulling replac um and also mark down at the elementary building was having some issues with the new software but that was mainly because of all of our old cameras and the the firmware can't really be updated because they're you know you know they're that age they're past their useful life um so we're going to actually add another server down there which will help with the bandwidth and and things for him you know moving forward um so that's that's mainly it for the camera system.
43. 28:40the door access system that we have now which is our swipe badges that everybody comes and goes you know throughout the building um that will actually also be converted to the same software from the camera systems which makes them you know compatible where uh you know if if someone were to to break open a door the camera system would automatically start rolling and send snapshots you know either email or via text message to my phone um licenses obviously to ingest all that we have a lot of doors in The District so it would be 53 of those um the good thing is that the licenses aren't an annual once you purchase them you have them that you don't have to pay for them every every year um there' be three new Access Control doors and 43 new monitor doors the doors that aren't actually being monitor right now um.
44. 29:32the big thing with the door access system in in my eyes is that lockdowns with if if someone or anybody even now that we're upgrading the phone system um you know pulls a lockdown into an event for the school the the door access automatically disables and it doesn't allow someone to come or go right so say a faculty member or somebody's out to lunch all of a sudden we're in a lockdown they can no longer get into the door which is which is a big thing um the the interface is user friendly for the for the door service uh and like I said it integrates with the camera system moving forward and I have to say Tyler and I team at a lot of different vendors and he did a lot of walks we really wanted to get best and we wanted to haveed what they could provide to us mentioned one but we did see the big thing you know obviously we sat on the committee for for days hours um was you know what the district has now what the district is going to move to and if it could be compatible right we didn't want to buy something that wasn't going to be compatible with what we already spent money and invested in any questions.
45. 30:46with with the cameras now um you mentioned the front doors are actively monitored or is somebody monitoring the rest of the cameras or is that only pulled up in case there's an incident.
46. 30:58so no no the answer to that question is no um you know I when I'm free and I'm up looking for something and you know or the security officers are up then they're actually looking at cameras they can look at multiple cameras um you know there's some things with the new system that you can pull up you know 15 cameras and just kind of have like a home screen so I think it's something for us for the future you know especially if we learn to get to a director of security you know somewhere coming down those lines but as of right now no one's actually sitting down we're not paying somebody to look at cameras.
47. 31:33anything else that's it thank you so much.
48. 31:36all right so uh we're going to introduce the guys from core BTS were a huge help for us um on our committee they made life a lot easier for for a lot of us uh it's Mike Mara and Joe chiarelli thank you guys thank you wireless system and the PA system great and then Ty and awesome.
49. 31:59all right good evening my name is Joe chiarelli with corbs this is Mike Mara um for those of you who don't know about core BTS we are basically a technology firm we uh basically Implement Enterprise grade Technologies to uh improve the way organizations do business and the way they function okay um Cheryl already gave us a little highlight on some of the things we're going to be talking about here in the smart schools Bond um just real quickly I'm an account manager with core I've been with the company for about 21 years um Mike go ahead introduce yourself to your role.
50. 32:30yeah I'm Mike Aran I'm director of our solutioning technology team and I've been with core 18 years as well.
51. 32:35so essentially you know I'm just you know the main interface for Cheryl and anything she needs from core and we kind of work together and talked about smart schools and we've been doing this actually now for almost three years I think from the Inception of uh our conversations uh Mike's goal is to come in and look at the um requirements technically and put together the solution Okay.
52. 32:56so so nothing happens without good old structured cabling right that's that blue cabling you see going through the ceiling or in the walls and you're like where does it go what does it do it's basically connecting all these end devices that are ultimately going to be the things that you use and touch as as end users okay um there was a lot of work that we needed to do to support the structured cabling um or the devices I should say in the elementary school um if you look there you can see the things that will be uh addressed with cabling in each classroom so a new access point teacher computer and the new pa uh clock unit which you'll see coming up okay.
53. 33:34so the way this is structured by the way um is you'll see an overview of what the solution is and then the next slide will be just some of the components so we're looking at about 380 new drops right again when you start talking three drops per classroom and then all the hallway drops you need for different devices those numbers get up there pretty quickly um new patch panels you know j- hooks these this is a little technical jargon but just gives idea of some of the components.
54. 34:00so the first um I'm going to skip this because I want to do calling and Pa as one because they really comprise your communication system so we'll look at Wireless as a separate um entity first um you're all familiar with wireless basically how it works it's
55. 34:17going to connect those mobile devices you're using right now uh Cheryl put up a number North of 3,000 for Chromebooks so of course all those devices need a real high density wireless network um this solution that we're installing from moroi which is actually a Cisco Systems product you're probably familiar with Cisco Systems nice thing about this is it's really going to take some of the management of your wireless network off the hands of the Hudson crew because it's going to be a cloud-based solution so what that does is basically make sure that upgrades are always done you're not doing real expensive forklift upgrades for a wireless controller every 3 or four years you're basically looking at more of a subscription based service which will upgrade and grow with the district.
56. 35:01Mike any comments about the Ws yeah Ju Just to add right to Future proof right when we roll This Out will be the latest technology like any technology it changes involves gets faster and better so the technology we rolling out will be what they call WiFi s so if you look that up in the news you'll see that's the latest technology and again the ab the uh availability to have this be scalable meaning grow as you need it and then be resilient because it is cloud-based that those are huge things and again just the uh the it Department's you know daily fires that they're putting out are you know end user uh devices and and dealing with POS process and and policy all that stuff they can focus on and not worry if that wireless controller is going to be up and running or doesn't need to be patched.
57. 35:49so some of the components we're looking at about 235 new uh moroi access points these would be classroom access points you're going to see 12 that are more of high density spaces so whether it's auditoriums or cafeterias things like that we've got some outdoor EPS to give you some coverage around your buildings um which is important if say you're out there with a um an iPad or another mobile device and you're doing attendance during a fire drill uh just one reason why you might need that outdoor access point uh capability and then there's a security Appliance to kind of wrap around it.
58. 36:20any questions about the moroi wireless solution no okay so I mentioned that we're going to skip and go back to the calling um we're really excited because we think that the next things we're talking about are really going to improve Communications throughout the district and also provide a you know major increase in in the health and safety of what you're doing now for your students and your staff um we're going to talk about first your phone system replacement and then your PA and clock replacement and how they all tie in together.
59. 36:55so first things first is Cisco WebEx calling like the wireless we talked about the phone system will now also be a cloud-based solution which again is great because you're always going to be on the latest Hardware software revisions all that will happen in the cloud it'll be more of a subscription based system and you'll have peace of mind knowing that hey we forgot to do these upgrades now there's a security issue all that goes away right.
60. 37:21I think when you look at so Joe and I work quite a bit in K12 space so if you look at some of these features what was we're talking to other school districts I I think the number one things we see that people say hey I got a texting capability now which again eliminates and eliminates using personal text phones and has a record of what's being transmitted um second message uh sorry call recording that comes up as an option a lot so that you record calls and there's a lot of policies around that so there's a lot of decision to make how you record calls if you record calls who does it uh and I think the third thing that I see as a lot of districts go through what we call you've all read about swatting and security instance like that so so uh there's behind the scenes there's a lot of Technology that's cloud-based that we try and eliminate where false calls are coming from to try and eliminate some of those uh incidents that we see a lot in the news that are fall string reports.
61. 38:11so some of the components of this system are of course new handsets so you'll see there's uh two different types of handsets the 9861 and the 9841 your 9861 is going to be more of a um administrative handset a color display more line of appearances where your 9841 is more suited for your classrooms um again doesn't need the high color display um same you know great voice quality so on and so forth um uh the 8832 are going to be your conference room phones and then of course we've got some analog adapters in there to handle conversion of uh analog signals like a fax machine to IP.
62. 38:50so we're going to skip back to your clock and Pa project okay so what we found when we did did several walkthroughs and as Cheryl intimated we we did several um so we're definitely familiar with uh you know where the shortcomings are there are going to be some upgrades to the existing Junior and Senior High PA systems uh we didn't have the budget in this project to do um the uh new units and we'll show you on the next slide everywhere that could be like a phase two of this project uh but we really think with some of the upgrades to the uh existing Junior and senior PA systems will increase that health and safety we talked about um the the key here is really the second bullet item you're going to have one comprehensive districtwide platform so the ability to page or lock down from anywhere to anywhere so that's key.
63. 39:37you don't you don't want disjointed systems even in a district as small as two buildings we're going to integrate um this clock PA system with your new WebEx calling solution okay and we're going to implement something called single wire if you look at the fourth bullet that's going to give you uh emergency notification it's going to give you Bell scheduling going to allow you to do preand lock down messages um we'll be able to scroll messages over displays you talked about digital signage Mark earlier um so all of that will be wrapped into again this new clock PA and phone system don't don't think of it as clock PA phone it's all one Communication System they all tie in together.
64. 40:16Mike you want to touch on any of these other slid or bullets go ahead
65. 40:20sure I I think just to rewind back to the phone system right we think it's just a traditional phone system it's really more than that in a K12 environment now it becomes a communication device becomes a lock down device the the phones that are coming out Cisco recognized as the manufacturer of that in the K12 space we need we need the ability to silently alert potentially right so if you look at some of the FCC laws that have come down uh especially in New York state there's something called List's law uh in New York state as example right now Governor hok had announced this law as that schools are required to consider uh silence silent lockdown capabilities or silent alerting so on the phones that we are proposing right there'll be a dedicated button on the top of that phone so if you desire to you know put a policy out that allows you know staff or students or anyone to accessible to phone right they can push that button to trigger a whole bunch of sequences of events and those sequences events are something that the district would decide how to do that so as we work with schools a lot we will sit there and coach and guide schools on you know what are those sequences that other schools do uh so you can roll those policies down so again I just want to highlight it's more than just a phone system it ties and integrates all together yes I think Cheryl your slide mentioned that this year would be based uh or not it would be focused on policy and procedure so these lockdown procedures the policy and procedure is huge so that's you know basically getting stakeholders together and deciding what happens when a button is pushed uh you're going to have the capability after we Implement all this technology to lock down in any you know number of ways that you can imagine it's just a matter of getting the policies to align with what happens when you push a button or when you dial a number whatever it is okay
66. 41:58so the components of a system like this um are what you'll see here is a clock PA combo unit with a high depth display which uh you may or may not be able to see if you look at the top white unit it's got a strobe in the middle and it's got Flashing LED lights that those two white bars can Flash any color so you can scroll silent messages on that you could do interesting things in the hallways that's the bottom unit where you could scroll you know countdown clocks for students to get the class you could you know do do nicity like happy birthday wishes or scroll important messages for seniors or the lunch men or whatever you wanted to do um those units uh in this first phase we'd be looking at covering some of the hallways if you look at the second bullet I mentioned earlier that the budget wasn't there to put one of the units the top weight units in every classroom we'd like to get there eventually um because that'll also take away the issue of trying to manage a separate clock system which can be cumbersome I know for a lot of districts as they start to kind of age out uh we talked about single wire Fusion again which is your kind of software your traffic hop that's going to manage all these triggers for alerting um it is going to be that one piece of software that's going to again allow you to take any triggers whether it's dialing a phone number or pushing a wearable panic button uh which we've talked about with the district and then what happens then right do doors get locked down do messages scroll um is the U psap being dialed immediately um you know our canned messages going out over the PA single wire Fusion is essentially the traffic cop again that does all that and so that's it
67. 43:38any questions at all I I know we went over a lot yes I had a kind of very specific question but um in terms of volume management for the Pas is there like selective volume control because I know that like there's select areas in the building where no announcements can be heard and bells can't be heard so is there specific volume yeah absolutely I'll let I'll let the smart guy address that one in terms of the technical questions but that those are all the issues we're going to address with not only the implementation of this new IP system but the upgrades of the existing uh analog systems in the High School junior high yeah Again part of our process to get to this proposal was to review every uh location in the district to address you know gaps as you mentioned so that will be addressed once we roll out the solution uh in terms of volume yes there's volume controls so we'll go through that the district want to roll that system out just to add a couple things um So currently now our Junior and Senior High PA systems right there there's a hub in each main office they're P their useful life they're obsolete we cannot turn the amp up any higher maybe that's why your question um and yes they do a b schedule Courtney and Theresa could probably attest to that every year I do the bell schedule about six times now it'll be on software and they can change it hour 2 hour delay no school you know yeah that that's going to be made much easier yeah some other questions May what with with so with a cloud-based system like this is there any redundancy in place so like if the network goes down how do we prevent it from taking out all the phones in in the entire District yeah great question so there's several depending on your failure scenario right there's several different resiliency capabilities so if we were have an internet failure there is backups that that reside on site to give you a certain level of capability right again it depends on your failure scenarios uh what I can tell you is based on what you have today this will be a lot more resiliant than what you have today yeah what m means when he says failure scenarios there's more than just one thing that can fail so to answer your question we'd have to go through the five different failure scenarios and explain where the redundancy is for each of those which we're happy to do any time if you want more information one phone right is the phones also have LTE right there's some Wireless capabilities but I think we there definitely some failure like given the internet we get that question all
68. 46:02the time what happens when the internet fails right there is a local resiliency that exists uh that you can continue to make calls within District but there is options for LTE backup if you want to Temple with something like that
69. 46:13yeah anyone else so for the equipment uh the moroi and whatnot the licensing what kind of period are we looking at licensing
70. 46:23um so you can do a three five or seven I believe we're going in at a three is what we put in the budget covers the first three years and then after that it will be an annual cost annual cost y or again you could you could reup for another three or five or seven
71. 46:41I'll set all right so next steps thank you guys um so the next steps basically is we submitted a letter of intent that we're going to apply to use our smart schools money we're waiting for a project number once we get the project number from n the next step is we enter the information into that sheet that I showed you before that's what that link is it's only a draft we don't submit it we just enter it in and that has all the details the costs and everything then um we do a presentation we I wanted to do we wanted to do a presentation tonight so that you UND everyone understood what the smart fund was what our recommendations are so that people can digest it and then we will actually do once that is entered into the portal and it's pretty quick to enter it in we'll come back we'll present the plan of all the information with the details um then we post it on our district website for 30 days the district will provide an email address so people from the community can respond um and then after the 30 days we do a public hearing where people can continue to respond at the public hearing and then once if we have to tweak the plan we do once it's finalized then that information that's in the portal gets submitted like we submit it we send it we press we press enter and it goes which is great you know and then a link to the process I don't know if the whole thing will show up here but you'll see it in the link this basically tells you everything regarding it's a long process but it's not a long process like so when I say it's a long process say it could take anywhere from 6 months to 18 months to be approved um we worked very closely with Mr shy the district's architect and we you know we appreciate that um and the work that's being done probably will be streamlined which it streamlined in the submission so if they give us that then it won't be 18 months 18 months is like when you're really doing a lot of construction and things like that so that's basically the process uh I'll leave it up there for for you it's linked there it just kind of tells you you know and they go through the review process then once they review they let the district know when everything is approved and this I've done smart bonds before so it doesn't like when we submit it I'm expecting because that's just how it works they're going to bounce it back and they're going to say well what about this or what about that no matter how detailed you are they have a question and that's okay that's what they're supposed to do um and so as soon as it comes comes back we get the information we submit it and it goes once it's all finalized then we're approved and then of course we work with the district just decide when they want to start to implement that um you're you're not allowed to purchase anything of course until anything is approved which makes sense but I just wanted to clarify that for everybody um so that's basically the presentation for this evening um I know I put this up before but again uh none of this could have happened without all of you here and home you know um and we thank you for that um and then did you have any other questions for me or the team
72. 50:04just one more question on the finances right so you said that this grant or Bond will cover the infrastructure of this plus three years is do you have a sense of like what how does the annual rate that we would be expected to pay after that point compared to how much is currently going into pH system
73. 50:23sub absolutely it's a subscription like software so you put it in your budget for subcriptions of software we can provide that amount of how much it would cost that's what you're asking
74. 50:33my question is like how much more money per year will once this new system is in place are we looking at more money each year needing to be allocated towards that than we currently have sure and therefore we have to like think about budget implications
75. 50:46sure So currently now with our phone system how we pay old it is we pay a tremendous amount of money to keep this these things that we have now for the phone system going because they're so old and obsolete um so it's actually going to be cheaper at the end but it's a very valid question and we thank you for asking that because that's important you know um how we're going to pay for it how but it would be like budgeting with everything else and yes and all of those details will definitely be provided to you at the next one
76. 51:19any other questions
77. 51:21all right thank thank you very much appreciate it thank you
78. 51:38okay we all good with person I would like to make a motion to set Personnel agenda items a number one to five and items b 1 to five
79. 51:51second
80. 51:51oh I'm just going to recru myself from Personnel um item A through five A5 um for conflict of interest
81. 52:06okay so we'll do we'll do Personnel it agenda items a 1-4 and B1 through five okay and then separately A5 yeah so make a motion to accept Personnel agenda items a one through four and Item B 1 through five
82. 52:26second
83. 52:30all in favor and then now we do make a motion to accept Personnel agenda item A5
84. 52:38second
85. 52:38all in favor um ladies and gentlemen about to convene to the public comment period of our meeting although state law does not require us to hold the public comment period we've chosen to do so because we believe it is crucial for us to hear from our community members about their concerns and issues having said that please note the board is here to listen
86. 53:07The public comment period is not designed to be a discussion accordingly please do not expect the school board members to respond to your concerns and questions tonight we take your concerns and questions seriously and want to have sufficient time to process and research issues if need be however we will respond to your questions and concerns at a future meeting or have the proper staff member get back you under state and federal privacy laws were unable to entertain any comment or questions about school Personnel. Each speaker has 3 minutes.
87. 53:43Hello everybody uh I'm Jill Turner um I'm not going to keep you long uh this is a subject that my two high school students have brought up with me over the past year so I'm it up with you um a few years ago there was a huge problem with fights vaping and vandalism in the bathrooms here at the high school and from what I understand the administration's solution was to shut down and lock all the bathrooms so now apparently students are not allowed to use the bathrooms between classes and they're not allowed to use them during the first five minutes of class and they're not allowed to use them during the last five minutes of class so that means if a high school student needs to use the facilities during their seven hours or so here they need to use them in the middle of a class when teachers are trying to do the bulk of their instruction.
88. 54:38Now this wouldn't be such an issue if the bathrooms were accessible but once a child gets a permission and a bathroom pass from their teacher uh they need to come down no matter where their class is they've got to come down here to the first floor of the building if they are a student who uses the ladies room there is one unlocked bathroom because it is monitored by an aid however if you are a student who uses the men's room you need to come to the main office so someone can get on a walkie-talkie and request that someone else make their way to the bathroom and unlock it. I don't know how long this could possibly take but it seems to me that valuable time is being spent searching for a a usable bathroom when kids should be learning the curriculum required to pass their courses.
89. 55:26Um I reached out to the superintendent and the diversity equity and inclusion manager a few weeks ago inquiring about how the bathroom situation is being prioritized because when I heard that we are creating sensory rooms I was worried that much needed aids would be moved to those rooms to monitor them uh fortunately the Dei manager informed me that sensory rooms will be staffed in collaboration with the Mental Health Association and no school AIDS or additional staff would be required great but this was a relief but I did not get an answer about how we are addressing the bathroom problem to me simply keep keeping them locked all the time has been a temporary band-aid and there's been no long-term solution.
90. 56:08I was on the School Safety Committee uh a few summers ago where parents teachers and board members discussed lots of potential Solutions and the one that most people thought would be the most effective would be to have more AIDS monitoring the halls and bathrooms so our kids can go to the bathroom they need to without missing large chunks of class time as our districtwide safety plan States AIDS and monitors shall have responsibility for monit monitoring Halls Laboratories locker rooms Locker bays and similar areas assuring orderly passage of students and preemptive intervention in potentially disruptive situations. So my question is where are all the AIDS what are we doing to recruit them and retain them?
91. 56:51There are so many students at the school who actually want want to be in their classes they want to get good grades they want to play sports and be in clubs and get the most out of their High School experience yet we treat them like they're in a Detention Center um I've been looking through meeting agendas and Personnel agendas from the last year and the two things that stick out to me is we have a seems like we have a lot of money to hire consultants and we have a lot of people resigning I think two AIDS are on the personel agenda tonight resigning uh and a payroll person.
92. 57:24Um so my questions for the board are what is being done to address the lack of AIDS and unlock more bathrooms so students lose less class time are you evaluating why we keep losing employees uh does anyone from the board ever do exit interviews without out with outgoing employees or retirees to understand why they are leaving or what their experiences were like were they trained properly were they made to feel welcome and the last thing I want to say is the way I understand Equity is things are fair when everyone gets what they need does this board think that the school is giving all our students what they need and when a kid asked to sacrifice curriculum instruction for something as basic as going to the bathroom I think the answer is no.
93. 58:02So I've left my email address uh on the sheet I'm giving these questions to the board clerk for the soon to be former board clerk um and I'm looking forward to a response as Mr depes just said I will get thank you very much.
94. 58:28Anybody else Tracy no thank you.
95. 58:52Okay good evening everyone and and welcome to 2025 um we're off to a great start and full swing for the New Year everyone came back very excited January 2nd just from the holidays there's fresh positive energy throughout the buildings rejuvenated minds and we are all motivated to achieve our shared goals for the 2025 school year.
96. 59:26On Friday December 13th mcss presented their kindergarten first and second grade winter concerts and on Friday December 6 students in grades 3 to five performed their Winter concert the Hudson Junior High School held its Winter concert on December 12th and the Hudson Senior High has had its Winter concert on December 19th. Thank you to all the Amazing Music team teachers um throughout the district and then in between performances I did get a chance to connect with students community members and families.
97. 1:00:07Great news a Hudson senior named a commended student so Logan or Conor High School senior was recently named a commended student based on his superb PSAT scores and so a huge congratulations to Logan. How does this work well to be recognized as a commended student PSAT test takers must attain a score in the top 3 to 4% on Nationwide test takers the National Merit Scholarship Corporation hands out this meaningful
98. 1:00:48acknowledgement for those students so congratulations again to Logan convers ation with the superintendent uh these forums they present an opportunity for residents to share and learn so on December 19th there was a session held at the Hudson City Department of Youth that featured a discussion on the availability of precond garden slots early intervention services for students summer school curriculum and our Blue Hawk Academy. The next conversation with the superintendent session is January 16th at 6 p.m. and sessions are always the third Thursday of the month and everyone is welcome to come out and have the conversations with me. Thank you so much and that ends my superintendent report for tonight.
99. 1:01:39Thank you I'd like to make a motion to approve consensus item gentl a through K
100. 1:01:57second all in favor put it back
101. 1:02:16important date January 21st 2025th facility committee meeting 4 p.m. in the district office conference room January 21st 2025th policy committee meeting 5:00 p.m. in the high school library January 21st 2025th Board of Education be 6 p.m. in the High School auditorium February 11th 2025th Board of Education me 6 PM in the High School auditorium. At this time we do have a need for executive session for the purpose of of proposed acquisition sales lease in Real Property that's 705
102. 1:03:06second all in favor
103. 1:03:12no further business thank you all for coming thank you thank you thank you thank you e

Timestamps link to the corresponding moment on YouTube. Auto-transcribed, contains speech-recognition errors. Not an official record.